Ac­tivist lands 3-year sus­pended jail term

A Chi­nese court yes­ter­day handed a rights ac­tivist a three-year sus­pended jail sen­tence for or­gan­is­ing street demon­stra­tions, the lat­est con­vic­tion in a sweep­ing crack­down on dis­sent. Zhai Yan­min was con­victed of “sub­vert­ing state power” for acts, in­clud­ing wav­ing ban­ners and shout­ing slo­gans in four protests since 2014, the of­fi­cial Xin­hua news agency said. Mr Zhai was held more than a year ago in a sweep­ing crack­down which saw more than 200 lawyers who had taken on civil rights cases con­sid­ered sen­si­tive by China’s rul­ing Com­mu­nist Party and ac­tivists held for ques­tion­ing. – AFP